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Different Environments - Australia and Indonesia
Different Environments - Australia and Indonesia
Would a rainforest in Indonesia have the same features characteristics as a rainforest in Australia? That depends where Indonesia is. Let's do some geographic research and find out more?
In this lesson you will:
In this lesson you will:
Complete a worksheet and Create a 'Project' in Google Earth comparing features and characteristics of rainforests of Australia with Indonesia.
You will need:
You will need:
Google Earth/computer/G-suite, worksheet, pencil
Indonesia - our Australian Neighbour
Indonesia - our Australian Neighbour
Launch Google Earth
Change the 'Map Style' to 'Exploration'
Click on 'Projects' / 'New Project' / 'Create Project in Google Drive'
Click in 'Untitled Project' and write the title 'Australia vs Indonesia'
Click 'Search' and type in 'Australia'
Click 'Add to Project'
Now do the same steps after searching for Indonesia, then Borneo, Daintree Rainforest, and Mt Keira. (make sure you save each to your project)
Click on 'Projects' again and zoom right out until you can see all of Australia as well as Indonesia above. Can you find:
Bali, Komodo, Sumatra, Papua New Guinea?
If you like you can add more information to your project by clicking on ‘New Feature’ then ‘Fullscreen slide’, and add a title, background and information here
Play through your presentation by clicking ‘Present’
Your teacher might ask you to ‘Share’ your project
Quiz time
Quiz time
Don't worry, it's not hard and you can keep Google Earth open to check your answers!
Australia vs Indonesia - a map fight
Australia vs Indonesia - a map fight
Australia is the world's 6th biggest country covering 7,686,850km2 of land. Even though Indonesia is world's biggest group of islands (archipelago), it only covers 1,904,569km2 of land.
Use 'MapFight' to see the comparison in size.
Type 'Australia' into the red 'select area' box. Select Australia from the options. Then type 'Indonesia' into the blue 'select area' box and select Indonesia from the options. Click 'compare'. You will see the maps overlapped and it also tells you how many times bigger Australia is.
Now you know that Australia much bigger than Indonesia, but did you know that the population of Indonesia is 268 million and Australia only has 26 million. That's more than 10 times more people living in a place that is 4 times smaller!
Where are rainforests found around the world?
Where are rainforests found around the world?
There are two types of rainforest - tropical and temperate. Tropical rainforests are found in the warm and wet areas around the world. Temperate rainforests are found in the cool and wet areas around the world.
Tropical rainforests
Tropical rainforests
Launch Google Earth/ click on 'Map Styles' / scroll down to 'Layers' and select ' Add Gridlines'.
Search for 'Indonesia'
Find the equator line going through Indonesia. The equator is an imaginary line around the middle of the Earth. Now find the line south of the equator called the ‘Tropic of Capricorn’ and the line above the equator called the ‘Tropic of Cancer’. Places on Earth within this band are in the ‘tropical zone’. This is where you will find well known tropical rainforests.
Scroll around the globe within this zone and find the following places: Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Queensland, Brazil, DRC (the Congo), Columbia, Madagascar. Do you see how green the land is in this zone?
Tropical rainforest treasure hunt
Tropical rainforest treasure hunt
Click on the picture to try and find some well known tropical rainforests around the world.
Temperate rainforests in the world
Temperate rainforests in the world
Look on the map below to see the areas in the world that have temperate rainforests. Some of these locations include Australia (Victoria and Tasmania), New Zealand, North America, Canada, Norway, Japan, Russia and the UK.
Do you notice that these places are no where near the equator?
What do temperate rainforests look like?
What do temperate rainforests look like?
Some temperate rainforests have pine trees, but the temperate rainforests of New Zealand and Victoria look different to those in the northern hemisphere. Click on the picture to play a video showing a temperate rainforest of New Zealand.
'Rainforest and Redwoods, New Zealand, North Island' (4.44 min)
What type of rainforest is on the Illawarra Escarpment?
What type of rainforest is on the Illawarra Escarpment?
The Illawarra is too far south of the equator to be in the tropical zone, but it is too far north to be in the temperate zone, so what type of rainforest is it? Click on the picture to find out.
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